On Sept. 3, 2014, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet in a bid to recover lost popularity. After a landslide victory in the 2012 general election, Abe quickly moved to reduce the value of the yen to increase the export competitiveness of Japanese companies. Abenomics, as it came to be known, helped the economy recover after several years of weakness following the 2008 economic crisis.

The economy has slowed this year, partly because of an increase in the national consumption tax in April 2014, and that slowing has caused Abe’s popularity to wane. So far, the reshuffle has helped push Abe’s approval back to 60 percent, but if the economy does not improve, voters will be ready to punish Abe in a landslide defeat, as happened to his predecessors in the general elections in 2009 and 2012.

December this year marks 25 years since the Nikkei 225 stock index peaked. After that, the index declined sharply ― the property bubble burst in 1991 and the economy began a long period of stagnation that became known as Japan’s “Lost 20 Years.” This story is well-known to Japan watchers.

By the late 1990s, it became apparent that the good old days were over because the population was aging. The entire postwar economic paradigm was based on a model that relied on steadily growing demand at home and aggressive expansion abroad. The aging of the population began to eat away at domestic growth because older people consume less than younger people. At the same time, Japan faced increased pressure from new competitors, such as China and South Korea.

A walk through Japanese bookstores offers a quick look at the national mood. In 1999, they were full of books about the aging of society and the need to adapt to a “new normal” of an aging population and low growth. Fifteen years later, they are full of books on the significant population decline and the need to adapt to the “new normal” of a decreased population. Discussions about the aging society have turned into a discussion about population decline.

The discussions lack a clear conclusion because history offers few insights into how societies deal with a slow population decline. Throughout history, Japan has turned to foreign nations for inspiration, but it appears lost in dealing with population decline. European nations facing a decline in population have decided to increase immigration to help keep the society young. Germany, for example, has been less receptive to immigration than Britain and France, but it has recently become the largest receiver of immigrants in Europe.

Instead of embracing immigration, Japan appears to be moving in the direction of trying to increase the birthrate to avoid the worst-case scenario of massive population loss. Japan has accepted that its population will fall from 126 million today to below 100 million in the second half of this century, but it has yet to accept the idea that the economy might shrink with the population, causing living standards to decline.

Focusing on improving the birthrate is much more difficult than opening the doors to immigration. The causes of the decline are complex and many cannot be addressed easily in public policy. Even if such policies worked, a gradual increase in the birthrate would take at least a generation to have an impact on society. Increasing immigration, by contrast, only requires changes in relevant laws and has a much faster impact on society.

At heart, Japan is reluctant to increase immigration because it fears a loss of its “Japaneseness,” the strong sense of social cohesion based on ethnic homogeneity. Foreigners are always foreigners, and Japanese society simply is not confident that it can deal with a large number of them living in its midst.

For Korea, the examples of Europe and Japan are important because the pace of aging in Korea will increase rapidly in the next 10 years and the population will begin to decline around 2030 and decline rapidly after that. Currently, Korea sits between Europe and Japan. It has accepted the need to increase immigration, but it also has the same attachment to ethnic homogeneity as Japan.

In this context, current efforts to accommodate “multicultural families,” however flawed, should be expanded because they signify a commitment to immigration amid the deep-seated impulse to maintain ethnic homogeneity. They also serve as a starting point for a much-needed national discussion on immigration.

By Robert J. Fouser

Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Ann Arbor, Michigan. ― Ed.